


Growth

by GeorgiPopovichWitchdoctor



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Growth, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Recap, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-11 22:05:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15981452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgiPopovichWitchdoctor/pseuds/GeorgiPopovichWitchdoctor
Summary: One long year after the Grand Prix Final, Georgi still hasn’t risen from the ditch where he had crashed; after death threats, memes about him, national ridicule, and the loss of his fans, depression has worked his way in.Yakov suggested the man go to therapy, as an attempt to get his original self back to the ice, to find more about himself.Georgi wants to grow as a person, perhaps he could use some help.





	1. Chapter 1

There is an intimidating sensation for the first visit with a therapist, where hands fidget, the mind races, speculative. Every time a voice is heard outside the door, a notion of panic overcomes, wondering if the person on the other side is either the therapist, or someone who could recognize him.

Georgi Popovich is known far and wide, for the national embarrassment of a program that did nothing for his career, except put Russia to shame; thank god for Yuri Plisetsky, who saved them from humiliation. The Grand Prix which startled the world, was over one year ago; Georgi’s incident scars him to this day, with hate letters, dwindling fans, and death threats.

There was no time to think about what he should do to ‘celebrate’ his mental illness rising to its severity into toddlerhood, there had to be something else he can start with. Who goes into the first therapy session and dumps the entire world on them? Surely, they were used to that; however, he didn’t want to cause any more shame. Instead, perhaps he can center on the way this place looks; it’s not difficult to.

He gets the impression this place is a new location for this therapy clinic. Some boxes are stored behind the desk, slowly being unpacked by the receptionist to place office supplies in her nook, a glimpse of decorations for the cozy waiting room poked from the boxes as well. The chairs are quite comfortable, making him wish his warm spot he resides in could be where his session takes place; the warm colors feel like a living room in someone’s home, rather than a clinic. There are plenty of decorations around, rustic, like the chalkboard beside the door, that says in neat writing, “Please treat yourself to some coffee or tea! We are so glad you’re here.”

He had definitely taken advantage of the tea, which sits in his palms, warmed through a foam cup, steaming before his face as he looks around. It was store bought tea, which did not bother him, though it did make him want his loose leaf tea at home.

“Georgi?”

Looking up from the picture on the wall, where he had read about the tea, Georgi realizes the door before him had opened; a middle aged woman appears, holding papers against the ruffles of her necktie shirt. The first thing he notices about her is long, pale rose nails, pointed, on barely aged hands, decorated with turquoise rings.

“That…. Yes, that’s me.” He forces out, wondering if he should have lied; going back to his car, and going straight home in an instant sound far more appealing than this.

“Hey there,” She greets softly, stepping aside to widen the doorway for his entering, “I’m Yansha Semyonovna. You may call me Yana.” That voice is almost familiar in its warmth, though Georgi knows he has never met this woman before in his life.

Standing up, Georgi gathers his long black coat to drape across his forearm, as well as grabbing the manila folder, which sits securely under his arm to rush forward. Somehow, he feels if he goes too slow, he may be seen as unwilling to go through with this, which was partially true.

“If you’ll come with me!” She begins to walk down this hallway, which seems to match the waiting room at the moment, where everything was still being put together. “We’re still getting settled in here, we just opened up this location last week. Our priorities were more inside the offices, rather than the waiting room and hallway. Sorry if it seems cluttered!”

“No need to apologize.”

When they stop before a tall door, one of the few without an opaque glass on it, Georgi steps in where she guides to find a blue room; the office is obscenely clean, to his relief. There was a comfort to sitting in a room without clutter, Georgi believed; all his life, he went out of his way to clean for the sake of being content with a room. “Just a few things to go over with you before we begin.” Yana gestures him with her hand towards the leather couch, barely big enough for two people, and sitting on the other side of a coffee table between that and a matching leather chair for herself. He follows suit, lowering down onto the couch and holding his items close to him as he looks to the paper packet settled before him, familiar in the intake form he filled out before scheduling here. “Just so you’re aware, I did receive your intake form, and I wanted to go over the consent forms verbally.” Pulling up page by page, she looks down, pointing with those pale rose nails to each line where his initials sit. “I’m legally required to go over with you on this here, that by signing these, you’re agreeing that in case of an emergency, if I believe you are a harm to yourself or others, I do have the right to call emergency services for you. Do you understand?”

Very straightforward, she doesn’t seem to be bothered by this; though why would she? This woman is a therapist for a living, she goes over this with clients every day.

“I do. My emergency contact is written on the next page, I signed for him to be a good contact to speak to….” Georgi feels the tension rise as seconds go by, watching as Yana reaches for her own pen, signing the document which states she’s gone over it with him. “Are you going to call him with updates after every session?”

“No, that is only in case of emergency. My disclosure is very tightly sealed.” When she smiles to him, it seems like years of kindness radiate from her; there was something about this that gave Georgi a sense that this woman loved what she did, and appears to sense his tension. “You seemed to leave blank the section on why you believe you need therapy; can I ask why?” Leaning back from the coffee table, this woman sits into her black chair, ready to get to know him, adjusting so she is sitting on her feet.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, Georgi glances towards her sitting, wondering if it’s comfortable for a moment; that’s not important, she asked a question. He needs to answer. “I don’t really know. I knew that I wanted to come to therapy for a while now, though the exact why is a little difficult for me to explain….. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re my client.” She answers plainly.

He expected her to be writing in a notepad while they were in session, yet it seems she’s relying only on this conversation, making eye contact.

“Well… I mean, do you know that I’m a skater?”

“Oh, for fun, or for sport?”

He can’t tell if this is relief that comes over him, truly. Impossibly, he’s managed to find someone who hadn’t been one of the millions who mocked him for last year’s skate, having expected his therapist to come to him with a full background check. The grip on his things loosens gently, only then realizing that the personal belongings were still all gathered in his arms, unmoved from where he sat down.

As he sets them down beside him on the couch, he clears his throat. “For sport. I am an Olympic skater. Yakov Feltsman is my coach.”

Her eyebrows raise gently as she listens, nodding softly to him, eyes still reading him as though he were a paragraph made up of messy writing, trying to decipher what he was meaning to bring this up with. “That sounds incredible; how many times have you been to the Olympics?”

“Twice.” Georgi sets his folder in front of him, growing comfortable in this couch in a similar way to the chairs out front. “I’ve been competing since I was fourteen, but I’ve been skating my whole life.”

“Interesting. I hardly pay attention to skating, but perhaps I’ll look for you during the next Olympics.”

There is a short pang in his chest as he thinks about it, wondering if he’ll even be competing for the next Olympics in three years time, his eyes falling forward to look to his hands, folded together as he sits.

“If I’m still competing by then. I’ll be thirty by the time they come around…. And I’m already starting to show my age when I skate. I’m essentially ancient for a professional skater. Not only that, I don’t think anyone will ever take me serious anymore.”

Her brows furrow as she questions what he means by this, noticing how his hands clench together at the words that spill out. “Did something happen?”

He almost wants to laugh, wondering if he should keep her impression of him as someone who hadn’t embarrassed themselves on television multiple times with a program like his, or if he should change the subject. “I…. I did a program to try to win my ex girlfriend back. And I ended up making a bad name for myself in the process.”

“Oh, relationships are so fickle, aren’t they? Would you please tell me about it?” Yana seems… unphased by his words. Shouldn’t she be calling him a creep? Like the rest of the world? The fact that she had been so polite in her request for him to continue only led him to a sense of experience, as if she knew deliberately that her manners would sit well with him.

“I…. I did two, actually… One was a skating program dedicated to begging for her to come back, and the other was to place a curse on her as the evil witch, Carabosse.” That would never feel comfortable to admit.

This is beginning to resemble a child telling their parent that they’d done something wrong, especially in how he slinks into his seat, his face coming out of view while he looks down further upon his fists.

“Wow, that’s…. I can see how you’d receive some negative feedback on that, especially as someone who represented Russia in the Olympics. Who was this girl?”

Georgi reaches forward to his steaming tea cup, having grown cooler as he’d settled into his seat, and sipping from the edge and meets back to eye contact with Yana once more, clearing his throat. “Her name’s Anya. She’s an ice dancer. We met at the rink, started dating back in High School, we were in a nine year relationship, and then we broke it off.”

“Mutually?”

It was beginning to almost be annoying how straightforward this woman was, though Georgi knew that hiding it would do him no good, especially since this person before him was essentially sworn to confidentiality. Polite, bold, pries him from the thought of lying…. She might work.

“She left me. I came back to our apartment one day, and her bags were all at the door, and she was with some guy, said she was much happier with him, and left a check for her half of the next few month’s rent, and told me never to talk to her again.”

The harsh reality that came to him in a sudden whirlwind, that his girlfriend of nearly a decade, was unhappy in their relationship, and had accusations of how he was the source of that discontent.

When his therapist speaks again, it’s almost startling, considering how his brain was immediately diving into those past memories, the fury, anxiety, depression, and sadness he experienced. “Nine years… That’s huge. Did you have any idea it was coming to an end?”

“None…. I suppose I was living in a fantasy. We’d talked about marriage, and we were even looking for a house together at the time. She would constantly tell me that she didn’t want a fixer-upper, but if we had to build on anything, she’d want a big bathroom with a huge tub, and we agreed on that. It came out of the blue when I came home from practice that night.”

There was far more than a relationship that he’d come in for, however; as he spills the information, Georgi can’t help but feel embarrassed, face red as he thinks back on those hours spent on a program suited to spite this woman.

“Ah…. You never had any idea. It’s easy for us not to notice when things in a relationship are going downhill; we get caught up in the future, our jobs, our hobbies, paying bills, school, pets, family… and then one day, something like that happens. When she said she was unhappy, did she say what of?”

That was the hardest thing to accept in the moment, how Georgi felt as this woman he’d fallen for nearly every day since they’d met, listened to her as she boiled him alive in accusation after accusation. His fingers unclench from around his cup, setting it back down on the coaster before he can pierce a hole into them out of his tension, as he crosses his arms together.

“She told me I smothered our relationship. I got too clingy, a little possessive. She fell out of love with me about a year before, but…. I suspect she’s had side lovers for a little longer than that.”

“Hm…. Clingy, possessive, smotherey.” She repeats back to him, tapping her chin with her finger curiously, “So to win her back, you’d decided to make not one, but two programs. One to beg for her back, and one to put a curse on her as an evil witch.”

Wincing at that, Georgi feels the ache in his heart rise once more, the humiliation coursing through his veins as strong as ever, in the reminder that he’d proved Anya right. He was exactly as she described and more. He still is.

“I know, I didn’t do a good job at trying to prove her wrong.”

Yana tilts her head, looking to the way his figure curled on her couch, inspecting how tense he was in this moment. “Did you do it to prove her wrong? Or did you do it to win her back? That sounds contradictory.”

“You ask a lot of questions for a therapist.” Georgi mentions, “A lot more than my last one.” He chuckles dryly, running a hand through his gelled hair, thinking quietly, “I….. I did it to win her back. The reason I’d done those two costumes was because she and I bonded back in High School over our mutual love of fairy tales and storybooks. Carabosse was the witch for Briar Rose, or Sleeping Beauty if you go by Disney.”

Yana nods, watching as he explains himself over the programs, knowing he doesn’t want to go into this further about Anya.

“I see…. And from what you’re telling me, it had a negative impact on your career as an Ice Skater?”

“Immensely….” It had been to the point where Georgi hadn’t been able to go online for weeks after his initial program, seeing how people were slandering him, calling him out on his possessive nature in the Carabosse program, watching as he had been made fun of for his makeup, music choice, all the way down to the costume. “It is my own fault. It’s something I need to work on. I don’t want to be possessive, or clingy.”

“So, you came to therapy to change yourself.”

Looking up from his position, Georgi almost wants to protest, though he knew that he truly did want to change himself. “I’m….. Yes.”

The woman across from him stands up, walking over to the side table, which turns out to be a desk he hadn’t even noticed coming in, and pulls out a notebook, as well as a patterned fountain pen. Returning to her seat, Yana begins to write down those words.

“So… Let’s get this straight. Your goals for therapy are to change parts of yourself that you dislike.”

He hasn’t thought about what he’d like to change, just that he wanted to be in therapy; Georgi looks rather shocked at her as she writes down those qualities. “I’m…. I would like to change and grow. I would like to treat others better. I don’t want to be the possessive person.”

Yana looks up, an understanding expression in her soft eyes as she looks into him. “Don’t think of it as changing yourself, use that word. Grow. You would like to grow as a person.”

Grow? Georgi just picked that word out of the closest ones in his head, not truly understanding whether or not it was truly something he’d like to focus on. “I…. I would like to grow.”

“Is that your goal?”

“Yes…. M-My goal for therapy is to grow as a person.”

There appears an expression of relief that crosses her face, as she sets the notebook aside. “We’ll explore those words in the future…. I think that’s a wonderful goal to have. It instills a confidence in me that you want to be here, helps me know that you’re here for you, and not for someone else.”

That hasn’t crossed his mind, whether or not Georgi was here for himself, or other people. He could make a million excuses to say this was all for himself, though it did sound selfish; perhaps it’s good to be a little selfish.

 


	2. One big Clown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m serious! He had this god awful shirt, this terrible clown shirt, and he asked my mother to use big red buttons on it, so the two of us looked like we had huge puffballs on our shirts! I was absolutely humiliated! One had glow-in-the-dark cats on them! The only reason my mother ever left the house with him is she could leave without makeup and all eyes would be on him instead. And then on me! She thought it was so charming!”

The pictures are finally up in the waiting room, only now is Georgi able to read them and see their theme.

_Don’t bottle it in._

_Your starting line is far from your finish line._

_You are welcome here._

He has seen pictures like these at the gym, far more intimidating with their motivational messages, in bold letters that cover the walls; unsure if he prefers these to them, considering one feels stereotypical therapy messages, while the other is hard hitting, pushes, and asks for results. Georgi shouldn’t be picky about wall art that has nothing to do with him, he’s here for himself, not for interior decorating.

The same comfortable chair welcomed him, this time with a small round pillow on it; far different did this place look four weeks ago when he first began coming to weekly therapy sessions, with the boxes slowly unpacking little by little. For a moment, he wonders if he’s the only client with this agency, as he has never come across anybody in the waiting room, whether coming in or out, other than the receptionist up front, eagerly signing papers every chance the stack beside her grows. Perhaps those are intake forms, similar to the ones he was given to fill out for his first initial session.

A routine is beginning to show for Georgi, where he commences self care before coming in for therapy, a homework given to him by Yana; in his hands sat a cardboard cup, with a reusable cozy upon it, smelling of deep cinnamon. Not only has he been grabbing a coffee before each session, Georgi also began taking baths prior to session, finding that feeling clean helps ease his nerves, centers his thoughts.

Watching the door as he hears a muffled voice, Georgi instinctively pulls his jacket from the folded seat into his lap, draping it over his arm while he stands up, watching as the short figure discolors the blurred glass of the doorway, swinging it open for him. “Georgi! Come on back!”

Eager to follow instructions, Georgi makes his way through, towering over her as he passes beside her with a friendly greeting, a smile where he once gave a polite, flat expression. Over their time together, the words became more casual, comfort steeped in, like a good cup of tea; therapy was a walk in the park, unlike what he thought it would be.

“So,” Yana smiles, plopping down in her chair, crossing her legs as she looks over towards him, “How are you?”

The ice breaker is hardly that, though he imagines it’s difficult to pry information from a client without having an opener, he supposes. “I feel good! I’m starting to really think that I’m happy about this. I’m making improvements, I’m working to better myself….”

“You sound like you know where you want to go; that’s really a good thing too, getting a good start to therapy. When you had therapy before, did you feel similar to this?”

“Well, my old one, Sarah, wasn’t very receptive. I only stayed with her about a month before I decided to look elsewhere, but that was years ago.” He shrugs, “But, when I was a teenager, Yakov got me into therapy then; I had the best time every week…. I really liked him. He’s more a grieving counselor though, not exactly one that I needed for here and now.”

She did not need to pry with Georgi, he was well aware; her work with him made sense to him, knowing he couldn’t hope to improve if he was lying to her about things. He has become an open book to Yana when she is around, immediately going into a comfort level that helps him express. “You had a therapist as a teenager? Can I ask for what….?”

“Oh, right… Sorry, I suppose I haven’t been talking much about that sort of thing… I went after my parents passed away.” Her head softly nods as she listens to Georgi, remembering as he expressed the pain he had experienced during his teenage years. “After I had started living with him, I began to get nightmares. I kept thinking I was going to get sick like my mother, or I was going to be in a crash like my father.” Two large events that happened in Georgi’s life years back, strange that he can speak about them now without bursting into tears as he usually would. “I saw someone named Dr. Yerebech, he was very attentive, made each session something I could look forward to, helped me with many coping mechanisms that I have today.”

There were moments where he couldn’t tell if Yana wanted to ask more questions, to interrupt, or to sit back quietly as he rambled on; he was a definite chatter box, one who could go for hours based off one question. Though it seems she does have more to say when he brings a close to his explanation of childhood therapy.

“You were how old when they passed?”

“I was…..” Oh dear, trying to remember the ages may be challenging, organizing events in his mind to what birthday, when the school year was, even down to when his mother worked. Setting his coffee cup on a coaster, Georgi bites his lip. “I was eight when my father died, from a drunk driver, and twelve with my mother, due to cancer.”

“And then….?”

“Yakov... He was an old friend of my parents’, from way back in college when all of them were in theater collectively. It had been years since they’d spoken, but…. When they heard that my mother reached stage four, they reached out. They had no idea that I’d even been born; it was pure luck that the news of her being terminal even reached them. Otherwise, I would have been in the foster system.”

Yana looks rather impressed to him, watching his body language as he speaks, with fingers tightened up in balls against each other, leaning forward with his back hunched. “That seems rather generous.” She declares, “Out of the kindness of their hearts….?”

“I’m not the first person they’ve taken in.” Georgi informs, thinking back on how many people lived there at once when he first got to the Feltsman residence, “My friend, Viktor, he stayed with him for years after his parents nearly disowned him for being gay. Mila, her family lives hours away and couldn’t commute every day to the rink, so she stays with him quite often during practice season…. Yuri, the youngest of them, moved in with Yakov to be closer to his grandfather, whose health is declining…. So, they’ve done this many times. The only difference was…. There literally was nowhere else for me to go.”

An understanding sigh escapes her, her slender fingers curl against one another to hold close to her chest, listening intently. “Well… no wonder you believe you have a problem clinging onto someone. You experienced a type of loss that left you alone, without family. It’s pure luck that your coaches ended up saving you from foster care. If anybody else were in that situation, they would have been overly clingy as well over the people they interact with. It makes sense for you to be possessive of people, considering it’s how you survived.”

For a moment, Georgi wonders if he accepts that knowledge at all, discontent with the thought that there was hardly more than a few weeks to find the center of his problem areas. For some reason, he wants it to be more complicated than that.

“So….. Is it possible that….. I can stop….?”

“Well, that’s up to you.” Her hands gesture out to him, looking him in the eye without authority, yet challenging him. “You went through legitimate trauma; your parents died in two horrific instances, you almost had nobody to depend on as a preteen/child, you lived with genuine strangers who raised you in an entirely different living condition, you had to go to therapy for nightmares, you had a nine year relationship that began in your teens and ended with them betraying you…. Georgi, this won’t be fixed in a few sessions. Trauma takes forever to heal from, and there will still be scars.”

Trauma. That word is so bold, so instantaneously intimidating for him to think about.

On one hand, Georgi’s lost two very important people in his life, both in unexpected turn of events; on the other hand, he didn’t know if the intensity of the world “Trauma” needed to be used for this.

Holding his hands up, defensively, Georgi breathes in deep through is nose, before huffing out the air in his comment. “But-”

“Stop what you’re about to say.” She disrupts, dropping the folder in her lap onto her small table before her legs uncross. “You’re about to tell me what trauma is, as someone who went to school for ten years. You lost your parents. One in a car accident, one due to cancer. Georgi, you went through something your mind didn’t have the capacity to understand as a child or a preteen. Your entire family dynamic was destroyed without your control, your life was turned upside down. You were effected to the point where the people taking you in believed you needed therapy.”

Georgi is rather astonished at her tone, to the point that his back straightens, like a child in trouble.

“I’m being hard on you because I know you can handle this, Georgi. The sooner you understand what you went through was something that shaped you dramatically, the sooner you can grow, and understand what has made you the man you are today. Being clingy is not something you’re born with, it’s something you conditioned with; you coped with attaching yourself to the people who care, because it’s the only thing you could do when you experienced this.”

This fault of his feels wrong to talk about in this manner, Georgi can’t help but stare down into his lap with discontent at her words; it felt like this was blaming his parents for dying. What on earth could he expect to accomplish, when he isn’t taking responsibility for a trait that needs to change? “…. Being too attached is my fault, it’s nobody else’s. I don’t feel like it’s fair for me to say that I am the way I am because of other people. I have an obligation to be a better person and take fault for what is wrong with me!” As his voice begins to build up, expressing with his hands in the air where he speaks off to, it’s easy to notice the frustration that is building up within him.

“Georgi.” Her voice pierces, immediately taking his attention. For a moment, at her tone, Georgi wants to suck all his words back into his maw, as though it would take the agitation back. “You are the product of the world around you. If you were born from different people, from a different town, you would be phenomenally different… This is not blaming anyone for the way you are. You were a literal child, you found a way to cope, which is a lot better than most children do. You are an anomaly! Not only did you lose the entire first decade of your life, you managed to go to the olympics ten years later as an athlete from that. None of this is because of anybody, except you. You found a way to cope. You didn’t go to drugs, you didn’t run away from home, you sought out therapy with your newfound guardians, you survived, and you became who you are. This is all on you, nobody else. But that doesn’t mean I’m taking the wrong away from you.”

Shit.

The entire thirty seconds where Georgi shot out unintentional anger grew cold in his lap, his mind beginning to trail back to each one, as though it could turn back time.

Slinking back into his cushion, Georgi manages to pick up his coffee cup, sipping the latte at the lip, before settling it against his chest with shame written across his face. “I’m….. Sorry.”

“There’s no reason to apologize.” She says plainly, “Do you see how you got protective over your parents….?”

“Yeah…. I see now.” Though his tone grows quiescent, Georgi can feel the way the room’s tension released little by little. “I feel like…. If I say I’m toxic because of my upbringing, that I’ll be disrespecting them entirely… They’ve been through enough in life, I want them to be content in death.”

Fourteen years had passed since his mother died, officially, he has lived without both parents for about half his lifetime; it didn’t sit well with him when his brain put it all together. Part of him wishes he could have introduced his mother to Anya, to Viktor, to Mila, and brought Lilia and Yakov over to have dinner again. He knows his father would be so welcoming, insisting to bring out the good dishes with good food piled on; probably wearing his best tacky shirt, and one of his worst ties to go with it, as he wore every day.

There would be music on that recycled piano, sanded and repainted to become the most beautiful sounding decoration in the room. The lot of them would hardly fit in that apartment, though as a child, it felt huge to him.

“You’re deep in thought.” Which is always a sentence that breaks someone out of deep thought indeed. Georgi looks over to her, watching her age worn eyes as they look into him, unwavering. “Where were you at, just now?”

Taking a deep breath, Georgi sets his emptied cup into the small trash bin beside him, before he wipes both eyes, crossing his legs on the couch to recall that sensation in his chest. “Just…. You know how some parents wear the gaudiest things on the planet? Shoulder pads? Neon patterns? Ruffles?” Smiling, Yana nods, gesturing for him to continue with a curiously amused expression. “My father was the king of ugly clothes. The ugliest clothes I’d ever seen! He would find these hideous patterns, clearance pile at the store, some sort of recycled pajamas, anything! He’d bring them to my mother, so she could make them into a shirt, and always made me wear a matching one!”

Georgi’s not certain he’s ever heard Yana laugh, until this moment, where the woman nearly drops her glasses off her face as she lets out a _howl_ , absolutely struck by the thought of it.

“I’m serious! He had this god awful shirt, this terrible clown shirt, and he asked my mother to use big red buttons on it, so the two of us looked like we had huge puffballs on our shirts! I was absolutely humiliated! One had glow-in-the-dark cats on them! The only reason my mother ever left the house with him is she could leave without makeup and all eyes would be on him instead. And then on me! She thought it was so charming!”

“Oh, my god, and you wore them willingly?”

“With the biggest scowl that a five-year-old could muster.” Georgi rolled his eyes, “And I always vowed that someday, I would wear the best fucking outfits. I wanted to be wealthy enough to wear such nice clothes, and shop whenever I wanted, and at some point, I was able to do that! I’m quite proud of my wardrobe now!”

“So… no clown shirts?”

“God, no.” He snickers, “I couldn’t bear another clown shirt! I’m so happy that I can put together nice outfits from now on…. But every so often, I think about looking for the worst looking shirt I can find just to wear and be like my dad.”

It sounds far sadder this way, though Georgi hadn’t meant it to; he wants to imagine that if there’s a life after death, that his father will notice his blinding shirt and applaud him. He can hear in a muffled tone of his voice, faded from memory, _“Zandra! Look at his shirt! We gotta find that fabric!”_

“You sound like you loved your parents very much.” Yana smiles, “It’s nice that you want to indulge yourself, and in a way, your dad, by wearing those clothes…. I think that’s a much healthier way to cling onto people. The largest form of flattery is imitation after all.”

“I…. Suppose it is.”


End file.
